Shards
by themoonlightdragon
Summary: Duskwings is a NightWing who has just lost everything- her home, her friends, her dignity. Loris is a RainWing who was held captive for far too long. Jaguar is a RainWing whose whole life has gotten turned upside down. These three voices from the NightWing exodus prove that not everything is what it seems. **Rated T for trauma**
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Duskwings

* * *

"Run!" I hear the screams as dragons shove roughly past me, racing to get to the exit. I topple onto the ground, feeling it rumble beneath my talons. "Run! The volcano's erupting!"

The ground feels dangerously thin, and my wing dips into a stream of bright red-orange lava. My wing shrivels in the blistering heat, and I scream out in agony.

Dragons are standing at the entrance to the tunnel, making us swear allegiance to a new queen- not just any queen, but a RainWing! Some NightWings try to argue. _You fools,_ I think. _You must do anything you can to get out of here!_ I feel a rush of hatred surge through me. They are holding us up; if I die here, it will be _their_ fault.

I twist around, looking for my mother, but she's nowhere to be found. _She probably passed through the tunnel,_ I think, _not caring about what happened to her own daughter, of course._ That sounded just like something Mother would do; she's always looking out to save her own scales.

The ground shakes more forcefully now, and just when I think I'm going to be left behind, Fearless snatches me up off of the ground and tugs me towards the tunnel. She pulls me close and whacks away those in front of her with her tail. As she drags me past the tunnel, she shouts, "Queen Glory!"

"Queen Glory!" I say weakly.

"Let's go, Duskwings," says Fearless, grasping my talon tightly in hers. She's pretty much just dragging me along, but I'm frozen with the pain of my wing.

"You saved me," I whisper hoarsely. _When even my mother didn't come back for me._

"It was nothing," Fearless says. "Come on, come on, we gotta get out of here."

And behind me, it happens. I feel it before I hear it. The ground rattles with the force of a hundred dragons, almost knocking me off my feet. The smoke stifles me, filling up my snout and my throat until I choke. And the sound is deafening. The _boom, rattle, snap._

The shaking in the ground is so strong, neither of us can stand up.

I know what's going to happen before it does. There's enough time for me to feel a stab of fear before my head cracks into the ground.

Black.

* * *

When I wake up, I know that I'm somewhere different. I know it by the way the sunlight streams through the curtains and by the very air, which is fresh and clear and doesn't hurt to inhale.

I'm lying in a hammock woven of reeds, in a neat-and-tidy room. There's more sun than anyone could hardly believe. I can actually see the sky, right outside my window, and it's a startling shade of light blue I've never seen before.

There are only three other dragons here, and only one is a NightWing. I stare at him, lying unconsious in the bed next to mine, a purplish-black dragon a little older than me. He has a bandage over his eyes. I find it odd that I don't know him. There are so few NightWing dragonets on the island- I mean, there _were_ so few NightWing dragonets.

The other is a small RainWing about a year younger than I am. I think she got hit by RainWing venom- there are three small black splashes in a triangle on her wing. The third is also a RainWing, but she looks thin and underfed. They're both unconsious.

Was _I_ injured in the explosion? There's a faint buzzing in my right ear. Oh my three moons. Am I going deaf? I squinch my eyes shut and try to imagine that possibility. Would my mother even care if I went deaf?

It hurts to admit that I don't think she would.

My wing is wrapped in a tight leaf bandage. The pain is gone, though. Instead it's numb. I can't feel a thing, even the bandages. Why doesn't it hurt?

There's something unsettling about this place. It seems so perfect, I find it a little hard to believe. Am I even alive? Maybe I'm in heaven. But I don't think heaven looks like a healer's hut in the rainforest.

Where is Fearless? Is she okay? What if she died? Fear seizes my heart like sharp talons. If she died... it would be my fault. She came back to help me. I don't think I could live with the guilt of that happening. If she died, I as good as murdered her.

 _But it's not your fault she came back for you..._ a treacherous voice whispers inside my head. _You didn't ask her to come back for you, and you didn't ask for the other NightWings to push you into that lava._

But a tiny part of me still blames myself.

* * *

I gradually adjust to the rainforest. They leave me a bowl of fruits by my bedside, and I learn to tell one fruit from another. Bananas are disgusting, and they leave a dry feeling in my throat. Cloudberries are good, though. My favorite are clawmentines. They're juicy orange fruits made of tiny dragon-claw slices that form a round sphere.

One of the things that amazes me most is the sky. When it's not blue, it turns black. Not immediately- it changes from blue to orange and pink and finally to black in an array of colors called a "sunset". I like when it's black the best, though, because it's soothing. It's not like the smoky gray-black of the sky back in the fortress. You can see the stars, little dots that sparkle like diamonds, or the scales under my wings. Outside my window, I can sometimes see the moon.

I'm so glad I'm here. I feel a flash of anger at the NightWing leaders for making us stay there when we could have been here all along. When I sleep, I see flashes of the Night Kingdom again. Smoke, lava, fiery death. I try to stay awake as long as I can, to avoid the nightmares. When I'm awake, everything is okay. When I'm awake, I am safe.

The only problem with being awake it that there's nothing to do. There are a few scrolls next to my bedside, and I read them over and over and over. There are only three of them, and I've read one of them before, but reading scrolls means I have something to think about besides all that has happened.

Most of the time, though, I have nothing to do but eat fruits and watch the other patients. The thin RainWing wakes up a few times, but she seems lost in her own world and doesn't talk to me. Her eyes are wide and bloodshot, and every few minutes she mutters something under her breath. The NightWing is still unconsious, but a couple of dragons came to visit him- a MudWing, a SeaWing, and a SandWing-looking-thing. They even read him a scroll, one of the ones I don't have. I want to tell them he can't hear them, but I don't.

When they leave, I can't help myself. I call out, "Wait!"

The SandWing-looking dragon turns around. She's the one holding the scroll. "Us?"

"Can I- can I borrow your scroll?" I ask, biting my lip. It's only now that I realize how hoarse my voice is, dusty from misuse. "I- I- there's nothing to do. I just... was hoping, maybe I could borrow it?"

"Of course!" The SandWing beams. She walks back over to me and hands me the scroll.

"Thanks," I whisper, unrolling the scroll. It's one that I recognize very well: _Tales of the NightWings._ It's full of lies and fabrications about how awesome NightWings are, but right now, it seems a lot more appealing than _Goodnight, Moons,_ which I've read eight times already, or _Scavenger Dens of Pyrrhia,_ which I've read ten.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Loris

 **I know my body isn't in the Night Kingdom anymore, but my mind is still there.**

I remember the rough feeling of a metal band scraping my neck; I remember the way the very air was filled with smoke. When I close my eyes, it's there, thumping inside me like a heart, and I can't get it out.

 _It's gone now,_ I think weakly. _It's gone. I'll never go back there, because it was destroyed._

I think of how nobody noticed that I was missing. How I starved all alone in the Night Kingdom fortress and the other RainWings, my friends even, didn't care. Did _no one_ notice I was missing? I must really be a nobody.

When I close my eyes, the Night Kingdom swims in front of me, but when I open them, the only thing I see is the RainWing healer's hut. I can vaguely see a purplish-black male NightWing with a bandage over his eyes and another NightWing, this one a female who is reading a scroll, but they might as well be miles away. I don't feel like talking to these NightWings- they could be connected to the ones who imprisoned me. And they probably hate me anyway.

I bury my head in my wings and shift the color from lily green to something more soothing. Dark purple, like the rainforest sky at night. I concentrate and add little silver speckles. There. Now it looks like a real rainforest sky. I might as well be sleeping under the stars.

 _That's right. Under the rainforest stars. Not in the Night Kingdom. Not in the fortress, not in the prisons..._

Acid green is starting to seep back into my scales. A shudder goes down my spine and tail. _Under the rainforest stars. Under the rainforest stars._ I imagine all my troubles swirling out of me and being sucked away by the stars.

 _Under the rainfore-_

"Loris! Loris!"

Something from my real world is cutting into my fantasy like a knife. I lower my wings and see a thin rose-gold dragon smiling down at me. My irritation immediately gives way to a pleasant, peaceful feeling. It's Orchid, one of the dragons who was imprisoned, like me.

But a sour feeling ebbs back into my scales. "Hi, Orchid," I say, sitting up in my hammock. I notice the reading NightWing look up from her scroll. "Why are you here? I thought you were relaxing with _Mangrove,_ who actually _noticed_ you were missing."

"Loris, he noticed you were missing, too," Orchid says gently. "I know you're upset about that, but our new queen did everything she could. She was stolen as a dragonet and nobody noticed. Now she's doing everything she can to make our tribe stronger- a tribe that _cares_ when someone goes missing."

"I don't need your sympathies," I say bitterly. "Go back to your _beloved_." I spit out the word like it tastes bad. An image of Jaguar flashes through my head, but I push it away. I know it's ridiculous. He didn't even notice I was missing.

"Loris, stop," says Orchid. Her voice isn't sympathetic anymore, but hurt. "Queen Glory knew you were missing, and she cared to look for you. She brought back an _army_ to look for you."

"Not soon enough," I mumble. I try to mask the pain in my voice, but it's hard. "I just- I want to live in a tribe who actually _notices_ when I go missing for _months_ and _starve_ half to death with no food, no air, and worst of all, _no sun!_

"Me too," Orchid whispers gently. "Me too."

* * *

Days pass, and I see less of the Night Kingdom and more of the rainforest. Fresh air- I can finally breathe again. I eat fruits from the fruit bowl in between my hammock and the greenish NightWing. It's so nice to taste the juicy deliciousness of the fruits I know and love- strawberries, bananas, pineapples, clawmentines, dragonberries.

The ashy hoarseness in my throat is starting to give way. I can once again taste the full flavor of a clawmentine; I can go minutes without being racked with those horrible coughs.

I have not been visited by anyone other than Orchid, but it doesn't matter. I can see the construction going on outside my window. The NightWings are building their village, and Queen Glory is overseeing it all, like a fair, just queen. That's what I try to convince myself. I want to think that our new queen won't be like the others- that she'll protect us and care for us. That's what Orchid says, anyway, and I want to believe her.

* * *

One day Orchid comes to visit me again, but this time it's with bad news.

"I want you to go to school."

"School?" My ruff turns indignantly orange. I had heard that Queen Glory was making one- it's this thing where dragonets come together to learn things, like how to read scrolls. This seems like a stretch for me, because I'm already four years old and I only recently learned what a scroll was.

"Yes, school," says Orchid. "You're better now, and I think you can come out. It'll be fun- I have your class schedule right here." She holds up a piece of paper with squiggly lines on it and starts to do what I think is called "reading."

"First you'll start learning how to read." That word again. "Then you'll get to interact with some of the other RainWings and NightWings. Next you'll learn how to count." Orchid smiles encouragingly. "Then you'll have lunch, and then suntime, and then you'll learn a little bit more."

"I don't want to learn," I say. "I don't want to see them."

"The NightWings?" Orchid looks puzzled.

"Not them." Okay, maybe I don't want to see them after what they did to me. But that's not the real reason I don't want to go. "The RainWings. They didn't even notice I was missing. They'll probably be happy that I'm not there."

"You know that's not true," says Orchid. "Remember, there are also the dragonets who were captured, like you."

"There are only three of them, and one of them's unconscious," I say, waving my wing at Kinkajou, the three-year-old dragonet who is white with pain, aside from the three venom marks on her wing. "Sloth is six and barely a dragonet, and Tualang is five and basically ignores me."

"Maybe they've changed?" Orchid says. "You certainly have."

I wrinkle my snout and turn over in my hammock. My voice is muffled. "I'm not going."

* * *

Orchid comes back every day, trying to get me to go to school. I say no every day, until one day the greenish-black NightWing pipes up, "I want to go. Can I go?"

Orchid bites her lip as she looks at the NightWing. "I don't know; you'll have to ask the doctors. I'm not sure if your wing has healed enough..." She looks uncomfortable talking to the NightWing, and I think that maybe she, too, has not completely forgiven the NightWings for what they did to us.

"Oh." The NightWing's face falls, and she looks so downcast I almost feel sorry for her.

 _I don't feel sorry for a NightWing,_ I try to convince myself. _I will never feel sorry for a NightWing. They are cruel, evil, and horrible dragons. Every last one._


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Jaguar

 **Loris is in school!**

When I see her, I run up to her. Words pile out of my mouth. "Loris, are you okay? What happened? Please tell me you're all right!"

"Why would you even care?" She mumbles, brushing past me like I'm invisible. My scales flash white with shock before returning to a stormy gray.

I'm ashamed. Pictures flash through my mind. Loris and me, picking strawberries together, when we were really little. Sloth and Loris playing a game while I watched, laughing. How did I not notice she was missing?

Everything is turned upside down. New queen; new black dragons; new school... everything is different! I can hardly believe it.

It turns out those black dragons, the NightWings, were abducting RainWings from right under our snouts! I feel ashamed; I didn't even notice. And Loris was one of them! Loris, one of my friends! I can't believe I didn't even notice she was missing!

I am the _worst_ friend.

* * *

Everything is different now. School is really fun, in my opinion, but I can't enjoy it after my encounter with Loris. I look up fervently at her and see her shoot a glare full of fury at all the NightWings. I instantly want to shoot them all with my venom. They were abducting RainWings, and they're the cause of all my misery right now.

I blink. I've never had a violent thought in my life.

Why is everything changing now?

I know it's not the NightWings' fault. It's mine, for being too blind to notice what was going on in front of me. I feel like such a horrible dragon right now.

I lean over and start writing on my writing-scroll. I can read now- read and write. It's difficult, though, and I can never get my talon to move the way I want it to. My letters are messy and jagged, and I can't get them to look like the neat, curved ones in the example.

 _deer loris_

 _im so glad your back. are yoo ok? im reely sory about evrything. can you pleez forgiv me? i reely miss you and i think sloth dus to. im reely, reely sory. i no you mite not be abel to forgiv me but i reely hope you can becas i miss you._

 _jaguar_

I know my note has a lot of errors. How do I fix this? I'm pretty sure 'really' is spelled 'r-e-a-l-l-y'. How do you spell 'everything'? Is there an _e_ in between the _r_ and the _t_? I think so, but I could be wrong.

I know I've been wrong about a lot of things lately.

I stare at the note for a minute until I can fix what I think are most of the spelling errors.

 _dear loris_

 _im so glad youre back. are you ok? im really sorry about everything. can you please forgive me? i really miss you and i think sloth does too. im really, really sorry. i know you might not be able to forgive me but i really hope you can because i miss you._

 _jaguar_

I think I was supposed to do what's called 'capitulation' with the letters. No, wait. I think it was 'capitilization'. I don't know. Either way, I think I was supposed to do that- like make the letters big, or something? But I'm not sure which letters I'm supposed to capitalize, so I just leave them the way they are.

I'm folding it up neatly when I realize that today is Loris' first day back at school. She doesn't know how to read yet. My shoulders fall in disappointment. All that work for nothing.

Well... maybe not for nothing. I can give it to her once she's learned to read.

But that might take too long. My only choice is to tell her everything. None of the fake, artificial attitude that most dragons are adapting. They're acting like the RainWings went on vacation or something.

I duck my head and make a plan.

* * *

After class, I confront Loris. "Loris, I- I'm really sorry, about everything. I really, really miss playing with you- remember when we caught the fireflies?"

I think there's a glimmer of a nostalgic memory in Loris' eyes. I continue, "I know what I did was really, really horrible, but I hope you can forgive me. I know you might not be able to, but I just- I'm really, really sorry."

I look down at my talons and my eyes swim with tears. I've been the _worst_ friend. I exhale and realize I've been holding my breath this whole time. For a horrible moment, I think Loris is about to walk away again, but then she looks up.

"I- I don't know if I can forgive you," she says. Her voice is hoarse and shaky. "But I... I want to." Now it's her turn to stare down at her talons.

I smile so wide, I can hardly breathe. "I- I'm so, _so_ sorry," I say; my grin turns into a grimace. "I feel like such an idiot. I just really hope we can move past that."

"I do too," says Loris quietly.

I feel Loris' tail twine around mine, and I'm filled with a calm, peaceful feeling, like everything is okay, and it will be for the end of time, as long as I'm with this perfect dragon.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Duskwings

 **You know that feeling, the yearning-to-fit-in feeling?**

The feeling where your heart is racing and your stomach is churning, because you don't know if everyone else will accept you? The feeling that you don't know if you'll fit in _anywhere?_ That's the feeling I'm having right now. _School._ After all this waiting, I can finally go to school!

"What is it like?" I ask nervously, my talons twitching.

"Really, Duskwings, you don't have to be nervous," says Fearless. "Honestly, it's quite pathetic. All we learn is how to count and- get this- the RainWings can't even read! They had to learn! Isn't that pathetic?"

My mind flashes back to the thin RainWing, the one who left a few days ago. I can't see her as pathetic. She suffered _because of us_. She suffered _because of us!_ I can't believe it. All of those scrolls about how great and awesome NightWings are, and it's all a pack of lies. _We_ were the bad guys!

"Yeah," I mumble, fiddling with my leather bracelet. "Pathetic."

"Is your wing feeling better?"

"They took me off the herbs," I say, "The ones that stop the pain. It's really sore, but it doesn't hurt that much anymore." I don't tell her about the times when I woke up screaming because of the fiery pain that bubbled inside my wing, the ones that made me think I was on the volcano again.

"Then we _have_ to go," she says. "They do this thing where if you're late they give you a certain number of strikes, and then they take away your suntime privileges."

"Suntime?"

"It's the most ridiculous thing," Fearless says with a little laugh. "It's this little nap that they take in the middle of the day. If you get three strikes, you have to sleep on the lower branches, with less sun. I guess they really are as lazy as all the scrolls said."

 _Shocking white scales, like looking straight into the sun. Bloodshot eyes. Shivering wings._

"Yeah," I agree. "I guess they are."

* * *

"This is Duskwings," says Fearless cheerfully. "She was injured in the volcano, but she's mostly better now, so she's coming here now!"

"Thank you," says the teacher- it's that SandWing who gave me the scroll. "We're very happy to have you here. Why don't you sit over there, by Loris and Jaguar?" She points at two RainWings at the far left of the room.

"Okay." I duck my head and shuffle over to my desk.

"Hi." The RainWing closest to me is a male with an easygoing smile. "I'm Jaguar." He holds out his talon, but I notice that his smile looks a little forced. "This is Loris."

I look over at the other RainWing, and I'm hit with a wave of shock, like bumping into a volcano. It's that thin RainWing, the one who left a few days ago. "I know you! I know you- you were in the healers' hut!"

"I was," says the thin RainWing- Loris- not looking at me. "You finally were allowed to come here, huh?"

I don't know, but for some reason that rubs me the wrong way. It's like she hates me for no particular reason at all. I don't know what I'm doing, but I blurt out, "What's your problem?"

"What's _your_ problem?" she retorts. "You horrible NightWings, locking up innocent RainWings. What did we ever do to you? What did we do to deserve this?" She storms out of the room.

 _Oh._

 _She was one of the dragons who was locked up in our fortress._

"It's okay," says Jaguar, following my eyes. "It's free period, she won't get in trouble."

"I didn't do anything to her," I say, my voice shaking. This is exactly what I was afraid of. "I wasn't the one who locked her up. I was just a dragonet. I had no power."

"I know," says Jaguar, but he doesn't meet my eyes.

I look up at him despairingly. _Please don't blame me for what the others did. I'm not a bad dragon. I was suffering there as much as she was. I just wanted to get away from there._

I look away. He won't ever understand. No one will.

* * *

"Come on, Duskwings, it wasn't that bad," Fearless pleads.

"Yes, it was!" I say pitifully, hoping Fearless will feel sorry for me. "It was _horrible!_ The RainWings blame _us_ for what happened to them!"

Fearless rolls her eyes. "So RainWings are dumb. We knew that already."

I think of Jaguar, with his easygoing smile and kind, gentle voice. "But the other one- Jaguar- he was _nice._ And you didn't see Loris in the healers' hut. She looked terrible."

"So do all the other RainWings!"

"Fearless, I don't think they're dumb. Or ugly. Or stupid. Or lazy! I think- I think- I think _we're_ the bad guys." I choke it out. I don't know what has got into Fearless. She was such a kind, caring dragon! How did she change all of the sudden?

 _It's not her who's changed,_ a voice in my head whispers. _It's you._

"Look, I'm sorry," says Fearless, her voice softening. "I won't call them those things anymore, okay? I'm sorry. I just- I _miss_ the island. It was so much better there."

"How can you say that?" I ask. "How can you miss the island?"

"I- I don't know," she says, her voice soft. "I mean, there's air here, and there's food, and it's great and all. But back at the island, we had respect. We were a strong tribe. We suffered, but we held each other up."

"We can still do that," I say quietly.

Our talons meet. Things may be different now, but she's still the same Fearless inside. The same Fearless who saved me from the volcano; the same Fearless who always stands by my side.

"I have some bad news," she says, her voice aching with fear. I look up and see that her face is streaked with tears. "I'm... I'm going to Jade Mountain."

"Jade Mountain?" My heart stops. "That new school for dragons of all tribes?"

Fearless nods.

 _"What?"_

I can't believe it. My best friend... is leaving me.


End file.
